F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (20 page)

 
          
The
one with the spiked dark hair—Al, Gregor remembered—gave his partner a
poisonous look, as if he wanted to kick him for being such a boot-lick.

 
          
"And
your timing could not be better," Gregor told them. "We have a
special guest visiting from New York." He didn't mention that she was here
because someone was exterminating their fellow slugs. "I will present this
gravid cow to her as a gift. She will be enormously pleased."

 
          
At
least Gregor hoped so. He was relying on the gift to take the edge off her
reaction when she learned that another cowboy was dead.

 
          
"Is
that the lady I saw you with last night?"

 
          
Al's
words startled Gregor. Had this cowboy been spying on him? He felt his lips
pulling back, baring his fangs.

 
          
"When
was this?"

 
          
Al
took half a step back. "When we was driving away after droppin off that
old lady. I saw her like come up behind you."

 
          
Gregor
relaxed. "Yes, that was her. These gifts will be good for me. And trust
me, what is good for me will eventually prove to be good for you. I won't
forget your efforts."

 
          
Pardy
true. The little boy would go to the local nest leader who'd been pastor of St.
Anthony's during his life and had a taste for young boys. The priest had become
the de facto leader of Gregor's local get. Over the decades Gregor had noted
that the newly turned took to the undead existence with varying degrees of
aptitude. Father Palmeri seemed a natural. He'd adapted to his new
circumstances with amazing gusto. Perhaps zeal was a better term. Some people,
one might say, were born to be undead.

 
          
He'd
save the boy for tomorrow since the priest already had a bloodsource lined up
for tonight. The pregnant female would indeed go to Olivia. But the rest was a
laugh. As soon as Gregor was moved out of here, he'd never give these walking
heaps of human garbage another thought.

 
          
But
he smiled as he turned away.

 
          
"As
always, may your night be bountiful."

 
          
CAROLE
. . .

 
          
A
little after sundown, Sister Carole removed the potassium chlorate crystals
from the oven. She poured then into a bowl and then gently, carefully, began to
grind them down to a fine power. This was the touchiest part of the process. A
little too much friction, a sudden shock, and the bowl would blow up in her
face.

 
          
like that, wouldn't you, Carole. Sure, and you'll be thinking that would solve
all your problems. Well, it won't, Carole. It will merely start your REAL
problems! It will send you straight to HELL!>

 
          
Sister
Carole made no reply as she continued the grinding. When the powder was sifted
through a four-hundred-mesh screen, she spread it onto the bottom of the pan
again and placed it back in the oven to remove the last trace of moisture.
While that was heating she began melting equal parts wax and Vaseline, mixing
them in a small Pyrex bowl.

 
          
When
the mix had reached a uniform consistency she dissolved it in some camp stove
gasoline. She removed the potassium chlorate powder from the oven and stirred
in three percent aluminum powder to enhance the flash effect. Then she poured
the Vaseline-wax-gasoline solution over the powder. She slipped on rubber
gloves and began stirring and kneading everything together until she had a
uniform, gooey mess. This went on the windowsill to cool and to speed the
evaporation of the gasoline.

 
          
Then
she went to the bedroom. Soon it would be time to go out and she had to dress
appropriately. She stripped to her white cotton underpants and laid out the
tight black skirt and red blouse she'd lifted from the shattered show window of
that deserted shop down on Clifton Avenue. She slipped her small breasts into a
heavily padded bra, then began squeezing into a fresh pair of black pantyhose.

 
          
getting into THOSE clothes again, are you? You look cheap, Carole! You look
like a WHORE!>

 
          
I
know, she thought. That's the whole idea.

 
          
JOE
. . .

 
          
Father
Joe Cahill watched the moon rise over the back end of his old church and
wondered about the wisdom of coming back. The casual decision made in the full
light of day now seemed reckless and foolhardy in the dark.

 
          
But
no turning back now. He'd followed Zev to the second floor of this three-story
office building across the street from the rear of St. Anthony's, and here
they'd waited for dark. It must have been a law office once. The place had been
vandalized, the windows broken, the furniture trashed, but an old Temple
University Law School degree hung askew on the wall, and the couch was still in
one piece. So while Zev caught some Z's, Joe sat, sipped a little of his
Scotch, and did some heavy thinking.

 
          
Mostly
he thought about his drinking. He'd done too much of that lately, he knew; so
much so that he was afraid to stop cold. So he was allowing himself just a
touch now, barely enough to take the edge off. He'd finish the rest later,
after he came back from that church over there.

 
          
He'd
been staring at St. Anthony's since they'd arrived. It too had been extensively
vandalized. Once it had been a beautiful little stone church, a miniature
cathedral, really, very Gothic with all its pointed arches, steep roofs,
crocketed spires, and multifoil stained glass windows. Now the windows were
smashed, the crosses that had topped the steeple and each gable were gone, and
anything resembling a cross on its granite exterior had been defaced beyond
recognition.

 
          
As
he'd known it would, the sight of St. Anthony's brought back memories of Gloria
Sullivan, the young, pretty church volunteer whose husband worked for United
Chemical International in New York; he commuted to the city every day, trekked
overseas a little too often. Joe and Gloria had seen a lot of each other around
the church offices and had become good friends. But Gloria had somehow got the
idea that what they had went beyond friendship, so she showed up at the rectory
one night when Joe was there alone. He tried to explain that as attractive as
she was, she was not for him. He had taken certain vows and meant to stick by
them. He did his best to let her down easy but she'd been hurt. And angry.

 
          
That
might have been that, but then her five-year-old son Kevin had come home from
altar boy practice with a story about a priest making him pull down his pants
and touching him. Kevin was never clear on who the priest had been, but Gloria
Sullivan was. Obviously it had been Father Cahill—any man who could turn down
the heartfelt offer of her love and her body had to be either a queer or worse.
And a child molester was worse.

 
          
She
took it to the police and to the papers.

 
          
Joe
groaned softly at the memory of how swiftly his life had become hell. But he
had been determined to weather the storm, sure that the real culprit eventually
would be revealed. He had no proof—still didn't—but if one of the priests at
St. Anthony's was a pederast, he knew it wasn't him. That left Father Alberto
Palmeri, St. Anthony's fifty-five-year-old pastor.

 
          
Before
Joe could get to the truth, however, the bishop had stepped in and removed Joe
from the parish. Joe left under a cloud that had followed him to the retreat
house in the next county and hovered over him till this day. The only place
he'd found even brief respite from the impotent anger and bitterness that
roiled under his skin and soured his gut every minute of every day was in the
bottle—and that was sure as hell a dead end.

 
          
So
why had he agreed to come back here? To torture himself? Or to get a look at
Palmeri and see how low he had sunk?

 
          
Maybe
that was it. Maybe seeing Palmeri wallowing in his true element would give Joe
the impetus to put the whole St. Anthony's incident behind him and rejoin what
was left of the human race—which needed all the help it could get.

 
          
And
maybe it wouldn't.

 
          
Getting
back on track was a nice thought, but over the past few months Joe had found it
increasingly difficult to give much of a damn about anyone or anything.

 
          
Except
maybe Zev. The old rabbi had stuck by him through the worst of it, defending
him to anyone who would listen. But an endorsement from an Orthodox rabbi
hadn't meant diddly in St. Anthony's.

 
          
Yesterday
Zev had biked all the way to Spring Lake to see him. Old Zev was all right.

 
          
And
he'd been right about the number of undead here too. Lakewood was crawling with
the things. Fascinated and repelled, Joe had watched the streets fill with them
shortly after sundown.

 
          
But
what had disturbed him more were the creatures he'd seen before sundown.

 
          
The
humans. Live ones.

 
          
The
collaborators. The ones Zev called Vichy.

 
          
If
there was anything lower, anything that deserved true death more than the
undead themselves, it was the still-living humans who worked for them.

 
          
A
hand touched his shoulder and he jumped. Zev. He was holding something out to
him. Joe took it and held it up in the moonlight: a tiny crescent moon dangling
from a chain on a ring.

 
          
"What's
this?"

 
          
"An
earring. The local Vichy wear them. The earrings identify them to the local
nest of undead. They are spared."

 
          
"Where'd
you get it?"

 
          
Zev's
face was hidden in the shadows. "The previous owner ... no longer needs
it.

 
          
"What's
that supposed to mean?"

 
          
Zev
sighed. He sounded embarrassed. "Some group has been killing the local
Vichy. I don't know how many they've eliminated, but I came across one in my
wanderings. Not such a pleasant task, but I forced myself to relieve the body
of its earring. Just in case."

 
          
Joe
found it hard to imagine the old pre-occupation Zev performing such a grisly
task, but these were different times.

 
          
"Just
in case what?"

 
          
"In
case I needed to pretend to be one of them."

 
          
Joe
had to laugh. "I can't see that fooling them for a second."

 
          
"Maybe
a second is all I'd need. But it will look better on you. Put it on."

 
          
"My
ear's not pierced."

 
          
A
gnarled hand moved into the moonlight. Joe saw a long needle clasped between
the thumb and index finger. "That I can fix," Zev said.

 
          
*
* *